Political Bloviation

ABC News: White House Blocked Waterboarding Critic A senior Justice Department official, charged with reworking the administration’s legal position on torture in 2004 became so concerned about the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding that he decided to experience it firsthand, sources told ABC News. Daniel Levin, then acting assistant attorney general, went to a military [...]

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This makes the argument that telcos should be exempted from lawsuits arising from their extra-legal cooperation with NSA spying because they were patriotically trying to help protect the nation after 9-11 specious. Former CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm – washingtonpost.com A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged [...]

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A few excerpts from Frank Rich at the Times: The ‘Good Germans’ Among Us – New York Times …As Andrew Sullivan, once a Bush cheerleader, observed last weekend in The Sunday Times of London, America’s “enhanced interrogation” techniques have a grotesque provenance: “Verschärfte Vernehmung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the [...]

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This is why I love Jon Stewart, slashing social and political commentary made funny: AlterNet: Blogs: Video: The Daily Show Comes Clean On Torture, Since The White House Won’t [VIDEO]

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House Passes Bill on Pullout – washingtonpost.com “I think this bill is the crucial fulcrum, the key, the tipping point for pulling out of Iraq,” A bit of convenient bipartisan comity a tipping point does not make. The true measure is how long it takes the wingnut noise machine to completely freak out.

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Ezra Klein: Lieberman Helps Destabilize Iraq Take a look. Ezra argues that as long as we antagonize Iran and use bellicosity instead of reasonable diplomacy, Iran has no incentive to help in Iraq. Once Iraq is secure, guess which country is next on the Bush-Chenney hit list?

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The plan is mostly likely to stonewall any real attempts at  oversight until the end of the Bush administration. I think that once the true extent of corruption and incompetence vis a vis Iraq is revealed it will boggle the imagination. The GOP can’t have this public before the election. Lawmaker says Rice interfered with [...]

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To the democratic congressional leadership: Do what we elected you for, oppose power grabs by the executive branch. Their desires are dangerous to the foundations upon which this nation was built. Your capitulation is not the first, but several steps down the road to the creation of an unchecked police state where law breaking in [...]

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I just took a look at Fred Kaplan’s blistering critique of the President’s  speech Thursday. I did not watch the speech because I felt it was a waste of time and it would be the same tired rhetoric I’ve heard many times. It seems it was, only this time reality on the ground has diverged [...]

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Harsh words for Bushies from the high priest of free-market capitalism: Former Fed Chief Attacks Bush on Fiscal Role – New York Times “They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose” in the 2006 election, when they lost control of the House and Senate. Interestingly, he goes on to [...]

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Soooo, we’re to wait one more Friedman unit before making any decisions about troop levels. I wonder if that’s actually sustainable. Kinda takes the fun out of the Dog and Pony show. We’ll get some pretty charts and rosy anecdotes of progress, but no underlying data, or even methodologies as it’s classified. Delay Decision on [...]

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I love Big Brother even more now that he’s ordered the surge in Iraq. Things are ever so much better now. Accordingly all conflicting information must be sent down the memory hole to eliminate any hint of cognitive dissonance. Informed Comment: Arguments over Night of the Living Dead in Iraq A Government Accounting Office report [...]

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Gonzales Faces Inquiry Into Veracity of His Testimony – New York Times About damned time. All roads lead to the White House…

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Bush Wants $50 Billion More for Iraq War – washingtonpost.com The revised supplemental would total about $200 billion, indicating that the cost of the war in Iraq now exceeds $3 billion a week. The bill also covers the far smaller costs of the war in Afghanistan. The Pentagon said recently that the cost of the [...]

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Iran says ready to fill vacuum in Iraq left by U.S. | Reuters.ca I seem to remember saying sometime ago that the best possible outcome in Iraq would be the creation of a new ally for Iran. It’s hard to believe that the “brilliant” neo-cons in the White House were unable to see that destabilizing [...]

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Here’s a round-up of local and national editorials about the unlamented exit of Gonzo. The Washington Times is the only one I saw that talked about his “accomplishments” and believes that he was unfairly treated by Congressional Democrats. Par for the course for big fans of warrantless wire tapping, eliminating habeus corpus and torture. More [...]

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I’m watching the CNN coverage of the Prez’s comment regarding the AG’s resignation. Poor Gonzo’s name was dragged through the mud for purely partisan reasons. Paul Clement will the interum political hack AG. Bush named the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and pursuit of political corruption has bearing the mark of Gonzo. I find [...]

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Crooks and Liars » Iraq Body Count May Double 2006 Numbers Way to surge it Bushies!! Is there any problem their incompetence can’t make worse?

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Finally Bush tosses Gonzo under the bus. The only question is who will the replacement be? This may lend credence to the US News (h/t via ThinkProgress) rumor about Chertoff replacing Gonzo. After all they need another loyalist to stonewall investigations and protect senior administration officials until Jan. 2009. Chertoff actually has more experience than [...]

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Exactly what wrong with privatizing warfare? King of Zembla gives a compelling answer: King of Zembla Paradigm Shift Old joke: conservatives believe that government is incapable of accomplishing anything good, and from the moment they assume power set about trying to prove it. Right-wingers, disgusted by government waste-and-fraud, seek reflexively to replace it with corporate [...]

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